Samsung released last update for my LExxA956 four years ago and many problems left unsolved. Do we have an alternative?
Recently I spotted Duckbox project. This is an open source software collection for satellite receivers with digital TV chips from STMicroelectronics based on sh4.
The most interesting part of Duckbox project is Havana player2. This is an open source multimedia player from STMicroelectronics (producer of dtv chip). Original Samsung sw includes STAPI based version 1 of this player and uses it for both TV and multimedia playing. Version 2 is much better integrated into linux and can play more input formats. And hopefully is much better debugged after several years of using on sat boxes.
Can we port this software to Samsung TV?
LExxA956 is not a sat box, is has only DVB-T tuner. On the other side, TV comprises hardware that sat boxes do not: FRC (frame rate converter), FBE2 (picture enhancer, commercially called DNIe) and local dimming control. There is also secondary CPU for analog TV: MTK8226
I started the experiment and after couple of weeks I've got basically working software:
- linux-sh4-2.6.32.59_stm24_0211 loaded over nfs and with nfs root
driver for dvb-t tuner s5h1432
sw for initialization of FRC, FBE and local dimming
basic communication with MTK8226
havana player2 191
lirc config
enigma2
I don't like media player in enigma. Much better working is command line eplayer3
I also tested XBMC - but it is very veeryyy slooooow on 266MHz CPU and hangs the graphic soon.
Experimental sw solves problems with H264 decoder
Lot of work remains to get an usable state. Any volunteers to help? Any ideas?
Edit: wiki page http://wiki.samygo.tv/index.php5/Open_s ... A7/8/9_SH4